Behind the Burnt Cork Mask - Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture

Blackface conventions both criticized the changes occurring in antebellum American life and helped shape images of race, gender, and class. Through the songs, dances, jokes, parodies, spoofs, and skits of blackface, white performers could satirize majority values without directly attacking them. Burnt cork served as a masking device for these entertainers, shielding them from any direct personal identification with the material they were performing.Behind the Burnt Cork Mask reassesses relationships between blackface comedy and other genres and traditions of Western theater; between the music of minstrel shows and its European sources; between blackface performance and socially constructed identities; and between "popular" and "elite" culture.

Summary

Promises to redefine the study of blackface minstrelsy, charting new directions for future inquiries by scholars in American studies, popular culture, and musicology

Product details

• Authors: William J. Mahar
• Publisher: University Of Illinois Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.1998
• EAN: 9780252066962
• ISBN: 978-0-252-06696-2
• No. of pages: 472
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 229 mm x 24 mm
• Weight: 634 g
• Series: Music in American Life; Music in American Life (Paperb; Music in American Life
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries